Doctor Who - Audio Adventures

[crankshaft]

I don't think the sound problems start until Toby Richards & Emily Baker are brought on board to do the sound design and music for "Dragons' Wrath" and the majority of season 2. The work they did was extremely poor. And as for their new theme tune, which appears to be called "Badger Is My Name"...my god.

[daf]

And as for their new theme tune, which appears to be called "Badger Is My Name"...my god.

Haha! Yes, that was quite, er, . . . something!

I think I quite like it now - it's just SO ludicrously incongruous!

As is mentioned in the youtube comments, there's a later audio - (The Green-Eyed Monsters) - where Benny hears it on a tape and goes : "God, i don't know what i was thinking!" Meta!

[olliebean]

Clearly intended to sound like a Bond theme, isn't it? Not entirely successfully...

[daf]

They also went for a Bond feel for their 'Diary of River Song' Theme song -

Riv-er Song
. . . is my na-a-a-ame,
Riv-er Song
. . . is my ga-a-a-me!

[purlieu]

A Doctor Who duo today.


Birthright by Nigel Robinson adapted by Jacqueline Rayner

I'm sure someone here, or one of the books, will be able to explain quite why, instead of adapting two of the several suitable Benny NAs - and I can think of at least eight that would work - two Doctor Who NAs were instead used as the basis of Benny stories. This obviously plays havoc with continuity, although it's no different to Human Nature happening to two different Doctors and can probably be explained away by changes in timelines resulting in different people being present during these events as a result of something else that happened to the timeline. This still leaves the important question: do these adaptations work?

Birthright is one of my favourite NAs, and sadly I don't think it works too well here. The Doctor hooking Benny up with Victoria's aunt to give her a permanent base in early 20th century London works much better than her simply being around, as found here; Jason acting as replacement for Ace in the far future is just far less involving as he's both a weaker character and one the listener/reader has less emotional connection with. His plot is also dramatically reduced from the more interesting version found in the book, with very little time actually spent there, and the entire removal of Muldwych/the 'Merlin' Doctor. More than anything else, neither location really creates much of an atmosphere, whereas the book is utterly dripping with it. Nigel Robinson paints the misty streets of London and the bleak desert of far future Earth are painted with vivid descriptions, but sadly neither translates here at all.

The actual story is fine if not especially original - aliens from the future wanting to colonise the present day - but without the Doctor-lite aspect, the appearance of Muldwych and the excellent descriptions, the audio version doesn't have anything to elevate it above fine. Colin Baker is the Doctor Who guest this time, playing a Russian policeman. He's quite good at it. I'm still not sold on Stephen Fewell as Jason, who here, and in the next story, is still just a bit... I dunno, 'soft'. For all his goodheartedness, Jason is outwardly a bit of a lad, but that's not the version here.



Just War by Lance Parkin adapted by Jacqueline Rayner
These two stories, combined with Walking to Babylon, form the 'Time Ring Trilogy', in which Benny and Jason travel through time for three adventures before returning back to the 26th century. The idea actually holds up pretty well, and minor changes in plot and dialogue are done incredibly well to make it seem like this was the plan for these tales all along.

Just War is another of my favourite NAs, and thankfully it's done much more justice here. Benny's story from the book is present in pretty much its bleak entirety, with her plot basically involving her being captured by the Nazis and tortured. It's never gratuitous, however, and explores the psychology of various Nazi soldiers brilliantly. It's a wonderfully thought-provoking story, and quite emotional at times, and that all works very well in such a dialogue-heavy format. Jason takes up the plot of the Doctor, Chris and Roz, although in a much reduced manner, eventually being little more than a MacGuffin to set things off and bring them to a climax. While there are many great scenes from the book left out, this doesn't make this version dramatically worse.

No Who guest this time, although Mark Gatiss makes his second appearance for Big Finish already. Some very good performances all round, especially from Bowerman who runs the gamut of emotions during the adventure. My favourite adaptation so far - unsurprisingly, as it's my favourite book of the six chosen for the series.

Next time... a bonus anthology release, and the first original Benny stories for audio.

[purlieu]

Buried Treasures

A special bonus release given to purchasers of the Time Ring Trilogy, with five sections.

Making Myths by Jac Rayner
Loved this, a comedy story with Benny being interviewed by Keri the Pakhar, as met in a number of Doctor Who NAs. They are revisiting one of Benny's first finds, a site of a legendary sunken island. Benny concluded that the story of the island was in fact a myth, but as the two get lost underground they uncover that it was, in fact, all true. It's mostly just good jokes and silliness, however. Keri's tendency to end every sentence with "yeah?" is surprisingly far less annoying in real life than on the page, and her appearance is another pleasing tie to the NAs. Lots of fun.

Gary Russell interviews Paul Cornell. In which almost nothing of any real interest is revealed, other than Paul's general enjoyment of almost all stories featuring Benny, considering her writer-proof. I'm not sure of the exact timetable, but it seems the NAs hadn't been officially cancelled by this point, but his attitude is tellingly one of suggesting the audios would be the future of Benny's story. This leads into...

Closure by Paul Cornell
A very different story to Making Myths, Closure is a pretty harrowing tale of Benny going back in time to stop a baby developing into a psychopathic dictator who starts a war seemingly out of sadistic revenge. She explains the horrors of torture and experimentation that happened within the war to the baby's mother, and has to decide whether to kill the child or if there's another way of preventing the future. It's an age old idea, but handled with typical aplomb from Paul Cornell. Not the kind of story I'd want regularly from the Benny range, but a very enjoyable aside.

Then there's the score from the Time Ring trilogy which is typically naff, and the whole thing closes with Benny finally arriving back at Dellah following the run of previous stories and giving a summary of them to her diary - her previous diary having been left in the 20th century - which basically acts as a roundup of the first year of Big Finish.

The story was released on the proviso that it was only given away as a promotional freebie, and so has never been given a standalone release - probably as part of Virgin's license to stop it clashing with the books - although both original stories are apparently available elsewhere on Big Finish now. Both tales exist within the pre-Gods storyline NA timeline, with Benny still living on Dellah, so they're nice little bonuses really, but very enjoyable ones.

Next time on Big Finish... something called 'Dr. Who?', I think.

[daf]

I think that's the only Benny release I don't have a copy of - though one of the stories (Closure) was included as a bonus on one of the later 2CD sets  - so I have heard that one.

Wasn't aware that the other story was available on another Big Finish release - will have to track that down!

- - -
Just checked ebay - one for sale at $700! Think I'll leave it!

[daf]

Looking into it further, it seems these two stories were the first ones ever recorded by Big Finish - like tv pilots - most likely to iron out any audio kinks and get a feel for how the longer novel adaptations could sound.

[purlieu]

Making Myths was available as part of a Big Finish podcast at one point, apparently not anymore.

In unrelated news, I just spotted this forum has DMs and I can be a very helpful and chatty person.

[daf]

Looking into it further, it seems these two stories were the first ones ever recorded by Big Finish - like tv pilots - most likely to iron out any audio kinks and get a feel for how the longer novel adaptations could sound.

Just to correct myself - these weren't the first stories recorded, but they were the first original stories they recorded - i.e. written for Big Finish, rather than book adaptations.

[purlieu]

The Sirens of Time by Nicholas Briggs

I have to be honest, when I pressed play on this, I was actually quite excited. The occasional BBC audio plays have been largely underwhelming and released as one-offs, whereas this, as the first Big Finish Doctor Who story, is the start of a long running series of full cast stories. Starting this really felt like my first new classic Who in years.

Erm... it's not very good, is it? I mean, there's nothing terrible here by any means. There's just nothing to write home about. Having not learned from The Eight Doctors, the range starts with a multi-Doctor story. I suppose it makes some sense, especially as there's no single 'main' Doctor of the audios, allowing all three to return together. Each Doctor gets an episode to himself, before bringing the three together. Seven's bizarre alien swamp planet and Five's First World War submarine stories are decent enough, but feel like opening episodes to stories that aren't allowed to develop. Six's episode ties into the overall story more, and loses any real identity or direction in the process. The whole thing ties together in a big mess of gobbledegook that feels, fittingly, like the final episode of one of the worse '80s TV stories.

It's very weird listening to a tale about Gallifrey being invaded and the Time Lords being enslaved alongside the EDAs, in which the Time Lords are far more powerful, intimidating and downright weird than we ever saw in the TV version. There's an unintentionally hilarious moment when it's revealed that the race who have invaded were, in another timeline, beaten in battle by humans. This is very much the Time Lords of the TV series: a bit pathetic, really. Otherwise, there's some borderline nice, borderline convoluted stuff about these three incarnations of the Doctor being lured into various events that set one creature free that sets one race of aliens free that allows another race of aliens to feed. Had it been a single consistent narrative, this might have been developed nicely over four episodes, rather than being blurted out in a few minutes of exposition near the end.

Sylvester and Colin are on form; hearing the former in the first episode as the first new live classic Who in years was a really nice moment. Peter is... a bit odd. His voice has finally broken, which means it takes a while to get used to him, but he just sounds quite subdued and bored. I suppose there's a touch of Androzani to his performance, but it's mostly just a touch underwhelming, sadly. The other performances are mixed: the main villain, in four roles, is excellent, and Mark Gatiss gets to play a second German officer; the other aliens are quite cumbersome, however, and the witch-like mad woman in the first episode is painful to listen to.

Soooo... yeah. I got a lot of enjoyment from the first couple of episodes, purely because of what they are, but by the second half of the story, the script problems began to overshadow that.

Next time... Mark Gatiss continues his plan to take over my life (I've been watching a fair few horror/SF BBC documentaries lately) with his first audio story.

[JamesTC]

Yeah, Sirens of Time isn't all that good. The range takes a few stories to kick into gear, but when it does, it really hits its stride very quickly. Most of the best stories are in the first 50 (not a diss on the main range, just praise for how good some of the first 50 are).

[Midas]

This one left very little impression on me (admittedly, it's been years since I listened to it); I think at the time I struggled to find any meaningful ideas underpinning the plot, so it felt like listening to a muddled series of events, saturated with technobabble, which ultimately proved to be entirely inconsequential. Three incarnations of the Doctor are brought together on Gallifrey, where they quickly save the day. "... so, what?"

Not the strongest entry, but they will improve.

[mjwilson]

Yeah, Sirens of Time isn't all that good. The range takes a few stories to kick into gear, but when it does, it really hits its stride very quickly. Most of the best stories are in the first 50 (not a diss on the main range, just praise for how good some of the first 50 are).

I mean, it is a little bit of a diss on the main range.

[JamesTC]

In terms of proper nine or ten out of ten classics after 50, you have Night Thoughts, Memory Lane, Circular Time, A Death in the Family, The Wrong Doctors, 1963: Fanfare for the Common Men, The Widow's Assassin, The Two Masters and Static from a quick look.

Compare that with The Spectre of Lanyon Moore, The Holy Terror, Colditz, The One Doctor, The Chimes of Midnight, Neverland, Spare Parts, Jubilee, Doctor Who and the Pirates, Omega and Davros in the first 50. I also think Zagreus is massively underrated.

In fairness, though they rarely excel, after they get over the lull of 2004-05, they are remarkably consistent. I don't think there is any story after The Boy That Time Forgot that is bad. And even that story has a kind of "how the fuck did this get made" enjoyment to it.

[purlieu]

This one left very little impression on me (admittedly, it's been years since I listened to it); I think at the time I struggled to find any meaningful ideas underpinning the plot, so it felt like listening to a muddled series of events, saturated with technobabble, which ultimately proved to be entirely inconsequential. Three incarnations of the Doctor are brought together on Gallifrey, where they quickly save the day. "... so, what?"

Yes, this sums it up pretty succinctly.


Phantasmagoria by Mark Gatiss

I'm finding the use of the '70s theme a bit strange, given that none of the active Doctors were around in the '70s. Indeed, there won't be any '70s-era stories for a long time. I have a feeling that might change, though.

Mark Gatiss makes it three Big Finish stories in a row, and this time he's written it as well. Although this is nowhere near the quality of his novels, it is a decent bit of classic Who, and once again makes me wonder why his TV episodes are usually so disappointing. I wonder if he's just better at writing for the pace and style of the classic version of the show rather than the brasher, pacier 21st century version. Either way, Phantasmagoria is basically a mid-range Doctor Who story, of the Masque of Mandragora / The Visitation / Death to the Daleks kind which is fine while it's on but will never be a classic. London 1702, and gamblers are disappearing. The Doctor and Turlough turn up and investigate, finding a trapped alien who is using the minds of people to repair his damaged cybernetic spaceship. There's a doctor who believes in ghosts, a highwayman, and some more aliens who are also hunting the villain, as he's a bit of a murdering twat. Plot-wise, it's reasonably slight, and with most of the episodes running to around the 20 minute mark, it races by, really. No surprises, no world-changing revelations, no psychedelic strangeness, just a fairly standard tale.

It's elevated above the previous story by a few things: a consistent, well-paced story from start to finish; some occasional but welcome humour; Peter Davison not sounding like he's in the first read-through. Gatiss is particularly wonderful as a slightly dim gambler with the voice of Rowley Birkin. Mark Strickson is Turlough, although he's not especially memorable. The rest of the cast are fine, but most of the characters feel somewhat interchangeable, as they are developed little beyond being gamblers.

All in all, a pleasant enough diversion that's hard to dislike, but won't be going on my 'to buy' list.

Next time... writing-a-decent-book-at-the-last-minute supremo Justin Richards comes onboard.

[JamesTC]

A while back, I bought the full cast First Doctor audio adventures that were done with the An Adventure in Space and Time cast. Only just getting round to listening to it now. Wasn't sure at first as I don't really feel enthusiastic about recasting when I think a great story can still be told without it (e.g. the Early Adventures range) but the cast really won me over.

Didn't think much of the early Master they've introduced but I guess it doesn't override anything already stated on the show. The story was good anyway, if a little inauthentic to the era. I don't have an issue with them telling stories not akin to the era the characters are from, but they seemed to indicate that the thrust of this range was to tell stories that would fit in.

The second story, The Great White Hurricane, is a special little story. Up there with An Ordinary Life as my favourite audio First Doctor story. Don't know why but the First Doctor works so well in a more modern historical. A shame that on TV, The Gunfighters is the only he got of that sort.

[purlieu]

Ah, an early Master? I suppose I'll have to put up with some continuity contradictions with the books, then. I think there's also a Sixth Doctor regeneration story that will totally clash with Spiral Scratch as well.



Whispers of Terror by Justin Richards

I get the feeling Justin Richards' thought process here was "as this is an audio story, I'll make an audio monster!" Whispers of Terror involves a man turning into a sound wave at the point of his death, and him returning to take revenge on the person who killed him. There's political intrigue, a murder mystery and... well, that's about it. While the main thrust of the story is very straightforward, it's also a touch confusing in places and I'm not completely sure I followed every little twist and turn. I'm sure it'd all make sense on a second listen.

Colin and Nicola are spot on as Six and Peri. The Doctor is pitched somewhere between his season 22 and 23 versions, still bombastic and rude, but also toned down a little. It really feels like they've never been away, though. The tone of the story is similar, with a fairly dark, gritty feel that wouldn't be too out of place in season 22. The whole story takes place in a sound studio, and with an invisible monster on the prowl, I can imagine it having a nicely claustrophobic appearance on screen. Lisa Bowerman appears as the megalomaniac would-be-president hoping to fix an election, and she's good, although distracting as I kept thinking she was Benny. The other characters are fairly one-note and, as I've noted on the past couple of stories, very slightly too similar to each other for a story in which there are no visuals or written descriptions.

So, all in all, another reasonable tale that I'll never listen to again.

Next time... EDA editor Stephen Cole has a go.

[JamesTC]

I suppose I'll have to put up with some continuity contradictions with the books, then. I think there's also a Sixth Doctor regeneration story that will totally clash with Spiral Scratch as well.

There is a final Sixth Doctor adventure, yes. I have seen the following explanation which attempts to reconcile The Brink of Death with Spiral Scratch:

Spoiler alert

Although it might seem that this final sixth Doctor story is incompatible with the previously published novel Spiral Scratch, it actually only overlaps with the last chapter of the book, and might well be considered to be depicting the same events from different viewpoints - the novel from Mel's and the audio play from the Doctor's. The only real contradiction is that the fact that in the book, the Doctor is already dying after his experiences in the Spiral Chamber. I suggest that the Valeyard's interference here alters this outcome - his plan is to steal the Doctor's life after all. Since the multiverse has been cracked open and alternative Doctors have co-existed, we can suppose that the Valeyard has interfered to ensure the Doctor survives, perhaps diverting the brunt of the chronon energy onto one of the alternative Doctors. When the Doctor defeats the Valeyard here, the overlapping timelines collapse into one, and the Doctor's regeneration puts everything back onto its proper track.

[close]

Despite not really paying heed to the novel continuity, the story The Wrong Doctors is built around the idea of not being events depicted in a novel and therefore creating a problem.

[purlieu]

Ah, that's rather interesting. I'm sure I'll have my own opinions when I get to it in a year or two!


The Land of the Dead by Stephen Cole

It's not an image that invites excitement. The '80s lighting manages to make almost every image of Davison's Doctor look very slightly insipid which, combined with one of the less exciting companions and an utterly bland title, doesn't make it the single most appealing cover.

It's not bad, really. The Doctor and Nyssa land in Alaska and find themselves with a team of archaeologists fighting off living fossils. It's quite interesting comparing the audios and books at the moment, with the latter focusing on corporations, governments, Time Lord wars, alternate realities, dreamscapes and generally huge concepts, and these early Big Finishes going down the early Who route of 'attack of the slightly weird monsters'. Creatures so powerful they absorbed their own flesh and became bioelectrically powered skeletons before eating so much of Earth's biomass that they starved themselves into 250 million year comas.

All in all it's a rather straightforward runaround, some action, some nattering, a side-plot that doesn't quite go anywhere, a character who loses his mind. I'm slowly getting used to this older version of Davison, although Sarah Sutton sounds so utterly unlike her younger self that it was pretty difficult to picture her as the same character. The most enjoyable character was Monica, a sarcastic loudmouth with more than a touch of Tegan about her. The two native Alaskans, on the other hand, were pretty dire, with some wooden acting and some fairly bland nonsense about their heritage being used to describe the creatures as spirits or something. The side-plot about two characters fighting over whose father was brave in a disaster 30 years prior added absolutely nothing.

Despite its base-under-seige format, it's generally very Davison, then: some strong ideas, with a rather more average execution.

Next time... Jonathan Blum writes a Seventh Doctor story. This is immediately rather appealing to me.

[Bad Ambassador]

It's not an image that invites excitement.

Not least because it uses a still of Joseph Merrick's skull, which then and now I thought to be in staggeringly poor taste.

[daf]

Oh, is THAT what it was - just thought it was some computer image they'd messed around with!

[purlieu]

Fucking hell. "We need something to represent a hideously mutated skeleton. How about a real person's skull?"

[Chairman Yang]

Jaysus, that's bleak.

[purlieu]

The Fearmonger by Jonathan Blum

Oh, that really feels like a step up from the previous stories. Brimming with excitement throughout. An anti-EU, racist, bigoted political party are gaining some traction in the UK and it's causing social division; a shock jock DJ helps stir things further, while claiming to just be an entertainer. It's all depressingly apt, even in 2022. The Doctor and Ace are investigating whether an alien feeding off fear could be leading the New Britannia Party.

It's all very season 26, only without the cheap production issues that plagued those stories. Street-level violence in modern day Britain, Ace being angry at racists, the Doctor appearing in unexpected places (his arrival in the radio studio at the start is inspired), one can imagine a bigger budget version of the McCoy era doing a story like this. Both Sylvester and Sophie are on cracking form, the best performances from Doctor and companion in the range so far. Jacqueline Pearce is tremendous as the party leader, while her aide has my favourite line of the story when explaining to the Doctor why he's employed by her. While the political slant comes down generally on the side of not being a racist, Blum doesn't shy away from treating complex issues seriously, with far more going on on either side of the argument than a black and white telling it could easily slip into. And, thankfully, the titular monster is only responsible for a little of what happens, allowing the bigotry and riots to play out as genuine human behaviour.

It probably helps that, despite the terrible CBBC level production, I love the McCoy and Ace era, and am thus very happy to have more. Either way, easily my favourite Big Finish story to date.

Next time... Jacqueline Raynor's first original story.

[Chairman Yang]

This is still one of my favourites and might the first best Big Finish story, depending on your taste in Doctors? It does get overshadowed by later classics.

I've got written in my ancient Big Finish Notebook 'solid couple of twists and some cracking sound design'. So there you go.

Although I'm not going to listen to it again now, because as you say, purlieu, "depressingly apt"

[purlieu]

The Marian Conspiracy by Jacqueline Rayner

I wasn't expecting a pure historical so soon in the range, but that's effectively what we have here. It's framed with a sci-fi concept - the Doctor is trying to find out why Evelyn is vanishing from time, and has to investigate a nexus point in Tudor London - but it's basically the Doctor and Evelyn trying to foil a plot to kill Queen Mary. There's lots of period detail, some great characters and a wonderfully paced, exciting plot. My only issue is quite why this is all happening without any external sci-fi influence. Nobody is interfering with time, so it seems a bit odd that Evelyn's timeline seems to be threatened. I didn't really spot it at the time as it's easy to get caught up with the tale, but thinking back, it seems to be a bit of a major plot hole.

This is Evelyn Smyth's introduction story, and it's a great one. The story starts with her history lecture being interrupted by some of the Doctor's equipment, and the two gel perfectly from then on. It's clearly a post-season 23 Sixth Doctor, much milder and friendlier, with less of his bluster, although still recognisably him. I like the fact that the two Six stories so far have very different portrayals of his character that suit the different parts of his development; a lot of the MAs and PDAs have had very questionable characterisation, but there seems to be a real care in getting it right here. I'm already very impressed with the chemistry between Colin and Maggie Stables, which comes through in an immediately brilliant Doctor/companion relationship. If daf's past remarks are to be believed, this is the start of a great run of stories.

In short:


Next time... Mike Tucker and the Seventh Doctor, always a great pairing.

[daf]

If daf's past remarks are to be believed, this is the start of a great run of stories.

Glad you liked it - it instantly made Colin my Top Doctor (on TV or Audio) - a position he's not shifted from since.

There's really only one slight misfire amongst the Evelyn stories - Real Time - which was written in 10 minute chunks for the BBC website, so is a bit of a dogs breakfast. Still, anything with Evelyn in it is worth a listen!

[jamiefairlie]

Agreed, she's a great companion

[JamesTC]

There's really only one slight misfire amongst the Evelyn stories - Real Time - which was written in 10 minute chunks for the BBC website, so is a bit of a dogs breakfast. Still, anything with Evelyn in it is worth a listen!

Plus it ends on a cliffhanger that is never resolved. I'm hoping they do a short audio story for a 1990-2004 Blu-ray set when that is released.